GOJIRA drummer Mario Duplantier has released a video for his latest drum solo “Movement”. The clip, which was directed by Anne Deguehegny, can be seen below.

In an interview with the “Behind The Vinyl” podcast, GOJIRA frontman Joseph Duplantier was asked if he ever has arguments with Mario, who is also his brother. He responded: “Sometimes, but we’re pretty patient. We have anger. I wouldn’t say we have anger issues, but sometimes I wonder. We respect and love each other very much. We’re aware that we’re dealing with a project that is very life-defining for us, and there’s a lot of people around us. So we’re pretty patient. Sometimes I can feel and I can tell — and he would say the same — that sometimes we just can’t stand each other. For a little bit — for, like, an hour or two hours. And then we’ll be, like, ‘You know what? I’m outta here.’ We will not start screaming, for example, if something is not happening. Maybe once a year or twice a year we’ll raise our voice on each other and it’s pretty nasty, but it’s very short. So, yeah, we’re not punching each other in the face or anything like that.”

Joseph also talked about the musical chemistry and connection between him and Mario, saying: “Sometimes he starts just playing something and I’ll follow him directly. And then something grows. Or we’ll stop and say, ‘Hey, I have this vision of something. It goes a bit like this.’ And then we start… We build together. It’s pretty incredible. I actually never really experienced that with anybody — making art together without being, like, ‘Oh my God. What is he doing? That’s not what I wanna do.’ There’s always a connection in something. And I’m very comfortable on the creative process, ’cause I know we’re looking for the same thing — sort of. He has his world, I have my own world, of course — we’re not the same… But sometimes we get together, and the common area is what defines what the band is, pretty much. So when we’re in that zone, where we connect, and there’s this thing where we’re both… And we know — we just look at each other; we raise an eyebrow or something, and, boom. We don’t need to talk. We just play, play, play.”

GOJIRA’s latest album, “Fortitude”, entered Billboard’s Top Albums chart at No. 1 last May, while also claiming the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Top Current Albums, Current Rock Albums and Current Hard Music Albums tallies. The release also marked a career high debut on the Billboard 200 for GOJIRA, arriving at No. 12, with several career high chart positions and Top 10 debuts in countries around the globe including: France (No. 2), United Kingdom (No. 6), Australia (No. 3), Germany (No. 8), Belgium (No. 2), Netherlands (No. 4), Denmark (No. 3), Portugal (No. 4), Finland (No. 2) and Norway (No. 10).

“Fortitude” is highlighted by the singles “Another World”, “Born For One Thing”, “Into The Storm”, “Amazonia” and “The Chant”, a slow-burning track featuring some of GOJIRA’s most melodic material to date.

Furthermore, GOJIRA concluded a month-long fundraising initiative in support of the indigenous-owned NGO The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) who advocate for environmental and cultural rights of indigenous tribes in the Amazon. Working with the social good-focused digital platform Propeller, the charitable campaign raised over $300,000 through an auction and raffle of one-of-a-kind items from the band and their friends in METALLICA, TOOL, SLIPKNOT, SLAYER, Slash and more. All proceeds will be donated to APIB to support their work aiding the indigenous tribes of the Amazon who have suffered immensely — victims of deforestation, land loss, forced labor, violence, and harassment.

Recorded and produced by Joseph Duplantier at Silver Cord Studio — GOJIRA’s Ridgewood, Queens, New York headquarters — and mixed by Andy Wallace (NIRVANA, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE), “Fortitude” is GOJIRA’s first album in five years and the follow-up to 2016’s Grammy-nominated LP “Magma”. A collection of songs urging humanity to imagine a new world and then make it happen, “Fortitude” has been earning widespread critical praise with Rolling Stone naming it one of their best albums of April 2021 and remarking “It’s all the rage of death metal mixed with the conscience of punk rock and the musicality of progressive rock.” NPR hailed “Another World” as “an apocalyptic banger,” and Paste called “Into The Storm” a “much-needed revolutionary anthem.” Stereogum declared, “hearing this band operating at their peak is a life-affirming thing,” while Revolver attested “Fortitude” “could spark a revolution.”

Swedish black metallers WATAIN have canceled their participation in the previously announced North American tour with MAYHEM and MIDNIGHT. The trek, dubbed “The Sanguine Sodomy Of North America”, was scheduled to kick off on March 7 in San Francisco, California and end on April 3 in Joliet, Illinois.

Earlier today, WATAIN released the following statement: “We regret to inform you all that, due to reasons entirely beyond our control, we’re forced to cancel our participation in the upcoming US Tour with MAYHEM and MIDNIGHT, for which we were due to leave tomorrow.

“We have just been informed that the US Embassy have decided to launch an additional, undisclosed ‘administrative process’ in relation to WATAIN’s visa applications. We’ve been told that this investigation could go on for months and that we might not get a reply until the tour is over. Since we have not been given any additional information about why this is taking place, how long it’ll take, or if visas will eventually be approved, it leaves us with no choice but to pull out of the tour. The same embassy has previously approved our working visa applications for every US tour, each of the 8 times we have applied.

“Preparing for a tour like this takes an enormous amount of work by the band and our crew. The merch has been produced, ticket buyers have made plans, and the crew relies on the jobs that the tour provides. It is a devastating blow to any band, but to the authorities in charge it seems to hold no significance.

“To our loyal fans and followers; we had truly been looking forward to stand before you all again. We invested all we had for this one.

“We are working hard on setting things straight and our intention is to re-schedule the North American dates for early 2023. Refunds are available at point of purchase.

“Finally, we wish MAYHEM and MIDNIGHT a killer tour regardless.”

WATAIN will release its new studio album, “The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain”, on April 29 via Nuclear Blast.

We regret to inform you all that, due to reasons entirely beyond our control, we’re forced to cancel our participation…

Posted by WATAIN on Friday, March 4, 2022

Fan-filmed video of Ace Frehley’s March 3 performance at Patchogue Theatre For The Performing Arts in Patchogue, New York can be seen below.

Last November, Ace said that he had collaborated with his longtime friend Peppy Castro on “some heavy songs.”

Peppy reportedly taught Frehley how to play guitar and previously collaborated with KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons as a songwriter and performed on Frehley’s and KISS frontman Paul Stanley’s solo records.

In December 2020, Frehley told Talking Metal Live that he would start recording his next all-original album in 2021. The record will be the follow-up to “Spaceman”, which was released in October 2018 via eOne. At the time, he said that had “been writing all along. Plus, I have tracks that I’ve already recorded that I have to revisit and decide whether they have a chance to make it on my new studio record — [if they] have to be rewritten or [they’re] just good the way they are,” he explained. “And I’ve got people sending me song ideas constantly… So, little by little, it’s an ongoing process, and it evolves as it goes.”

Earlier in 2020, Frehley told Canada’s iHeart Radio that he had “only written about three songs” for his next LP, and he added they were “not finished.” He said: “Now that I’m [living] on the East Coast [after moving to New Jersey from Southern California], my engineer only lives an hour from me, Alex Salzman, who worked with me extensively on this last record, and he played a lot of bass guitar as well, So it’s gonna be even easier, ‘Origins Vol. 3′ and the next [original] record.”

Frehley’s latest release was “Origins Vol. 2”, the sequel to his 2016 collection of cover songs that inspired the former KISS guitarist.

“Origins Vol. 2” featured cover versions of THE BEATLES’ “I’m Down”, DEEP PURPLE’s “Space Truckin'”, LED ZEPPELIN’s “Good Times Bad Times”, THE ROLLING STONES’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, THE KINKS’ “Lola” and THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE’s “Manic Depression”, among others. A cover of the 1975 KISS tune “She” also appeared as a bonus track. Guests on the set included CHEAP TRICK’s Robin Zander, Lita Ford and former KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick.

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons co-wrote two tracks on “Spaceman”, “Without You I’m Nothing” and “Your Wish Is My Command”, the latter of which also features Simmons’s bass playing.

Although located squarely (and proudly) at the dark and progressive end of the death metal world, HATH have clearly been in a state of evolution since releasing their 2019 debut, “Of Rot and Ruin”. Just as it probably should be, “All That Was Promised” is rooted in the stormy clangor of NOVEMBERS DOOM and EDGE OF SANITY, but this New Jersey quartet also have a malevolent, blackened and subversive streak a mile wide. It’s that tension, between dark-hued, proggy opulence and white-knuckle nihilism, that makes this such a consistently gripping listen. That, and the fact that these songs kick an absurd amount of ass.

Opener “The Million Violations” is a pitiless starting point, with blastbeats cascading down in waves and not a chink of sonic light to be found. “Kenosis” doubles down on that murderous approach, with sinister melodies and BEHEMOTH-like vocal crescendos seeping out from the violent melee, while “Lithopaedic” marries the grotesque pomp of mid ’90s MORBID ANGEL to the maxed-out battery of blackened death metal at its most myopically brutal.

More overtly progressive but no less punishing, “Iosis” does bewitching things with the simplest of dissonant riffs and a heavyweight waltz-time rhythm; “Death Complex” employs some neat post-metal, syncopated churn in its bid to flatten all-comers, amidst waves of mean-spirited riffs. HATH play it like they mean it, and even the most straightforward songs here — “Kenosis” and the title track spring to mind — seem driven by something more than just great musicianship and a desire to crush skulls. The closing “Name Them Yet Build No Monument” is the finest of the lot, and truly brings this band’s progressive instincts to the surface. Still resolutely dark as hell, but imbued with elegance and refined dynamics, it begins as a ruthless extreme metal onslaught but evolves into something far more interesting; a delicate, climactic instrumental coda providing the album’s only real moment of light or hope.

“All That Was Promised” is also smart and shrewd enough to never quite fit into any particular subgenre pigeonhole. HATH are audibly sworn to the black and hell-bent on annihilation, but there is great creativity and verve on offer here too.



Legendary British rockers DEEP PURPLE have released “7 And 7 Is (German TV Rehearsal Take 1)”. This previously unreleased version of “7 And 7 Is” was recorded by DEEP PURPLE in November 2021 during the band’s promotional and press tour in Germany for its latest album, “Turning To Crime”. It was during this same trip that the band filmed the music video for its version of FLEETWOOD MAC’s “Oh Well”.

So eager to play, members of DEEP PURPLE had their live rig pulled together and set up in a large warehouse, with cameras only being allowed in for this rendition of the track “7 And 7 Is”. In truth, nobody really knows what the band played in the hours during which they were in that room, as no access was given to anybody other than their trusted sound engineer. However, this recording is a testimony of this first auspicious meeting and marks the moment where, after almost two years, the band played live again in the same room.

“Turning To Crime” came out on November 26 via earMUSIC. The LP contains DEEP PURPLE’s versions of great rock classics and musical jewels — including songs originally recorded by Bob Dylan, FLEETWOOD MAC, Bob Seger, CREAM and THE YARDBIRDS — carefully chosen by each member of the band.

DEEP PURPLE singer Ian Gillan told Classic Rock magazine that he was “totally against” the idea of releasing a new album just 15 months after the August 2020 release of “Whoosh!” “I thought that PURPLE purists, myself among them, would see something like this as criminal, metaphorically speaking, so initially I didn’t like the idea at all,” he said. “And then I started tapping my fingers on the desk at home, and thinking, ‘Hmmm, well, what are we going to do for the next year if nothing is happening?'”

DEEP PURPLE played two gigs in Florida last month but currently has no other U.S. shows scheduled for this year.

Swedish high-energy rock and rollers THE HELLACOPTERS will release a new studio album, “Eyes Of Oblivion”, on April 1 via Nuclear Blast. It will mark their first full-length collection of new material since 2008’s “Head Off”. The official music video for the LP’s third single, “So Sorry I Could Die”, can be seen below.

“So Sorry I Could Die”, a stripped-down yet intense blues ballad that also pays tribute to the southern soul in its vocal delivery, is probably the most unusual song on the album and maybe even in THE HELLACOPTERS’ whole catalog so far.

THE HELLACOPTERS guitarist/vocalist Nicke Andersson previously stated about “Eyes Of Oblivion”: “The album has 10 songs, and although it’s obviously not easy to be objective at all, I think musically it sums up everything we’ve touched upon from the start in 1994 up until now. Some of the songs date back as far as 10 years or more, and some were written more recently. It’s rock and roll played with high energy, so for lack of a better term, I say high-energy rock and roll. You could say it sounds like THE BEATLES meets JUDAS PRIEST or LYNYRD SKYNYRD meets the RAMONES but the best way to describe this album is that it sounds like THE HELLACOPTERS today.”

Last December, THE HELLACOPTERS shared the album’s first single, the anthemic album opener “Reap A Hurricane”. The track continues the good old HELLACOPTERS tradition of releasing physical seven-inch singles in each album cycle. The seven-inch vinyl of “Reap A Hurricane” will be released on February 4 and it features an exclusive song called “Done Fighting” as a B-side. The seven-inch is available in two different color variants, red and green, which applies to both the vinyl and the respective cover.

THE HELLACOPTERS were formed in 1994 by ENTOMBED drummer Andersson and BACKYARD BABIES guitarist Dregen.

THE HELLACOPTERS’ second album, 1997’s “Payin’ The Dues”, was the band’s last studio effort to feature Dregen before his departure to focus full-time on BACKYARD BABIES.

In October 2007, THE HELLACOPTERS announced that they would be breaking up after the release of their seventh full-length album, “Head Off”, a collection of cover songs. Eight years later, the band reunited, initially for an exclusive performance at the Sweden Rock Festival to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of their debut album, “Supershitty To The Max!”

Robert “Strängen” Dahlqvist, who played guitar for THE HELLACOPTERS for nearly a decade, died in February 2017 at the age of 40.

Dahlqvist was a member of THE HELLACOPTERS from 1999 until the group disbanded in 2008.

THE HELLACOPTERS achieved two gold certifications, won the Swedish Grammy equivalent and a Kerrang! award, and have amassed 100 million streams to date.